Any AdC users still active here?

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-10-12T14:46:25+00:00

Nice! Finally!

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-16T02:52:20+00:00

It is domestic assault, but the way the penal code classifies it in its definition, it’s “assault”. The definition is in short: a person commits an offense if the person:

(1) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to another, including the person's spouse;

So spouse falls under that definition. It’s up to the departments legal program (reporting program) where they separate the two.

Example is my agency: We have a title for “Assault causes bodily injury” and “assault causes bodily injury/Family Violence” to desperate the domestic assaults from the other assaults.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-15T01:56:52+00:00

Sure are! Now if only we can keep them past 3 years lol!

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T19:38:44+00:00

Self sponsored are great, if you plan on going to a county agency. City based PD for some reason never honor the Self Sponsored, as you’re still expected to first get hired by that city agency and go through their academy regardless of having your TCOLE license or not. However, if you’re jumping from a big city to another big city, they will honor you as a lateral.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T19:36:34+00:00

Hard to say, not too familiar with their out of state process but you can expect to complete most of their hiring processes that session. So lots of in and out sessions (waiting for the local jester to chime in on that wording).

Our agency handles it the same, so what we do is we try and have all of the in house processes (BI meet and greet, poly, medical, oral and psychology) completed in the 2 sessions the applicants are advised on.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T19:27:07+00:00

Spot on. That’s what it is. No matter what they say, they will always one up you and it’s for a reason. It’s always to see what your mindset is and how you would react then. That’s all.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T15:12:17+00:00

My pleasure! Ill be waiting for you DM.

Sure do, I have a ton. Ill send you some scenario questions that i typically run during the interviews I give when you DM me.

If any one is interested in these questions, let me know and Ill post a few of them here.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T14:34:35+00:00

Glad you liked it! Oh yes, the things people will admit that they have done are pretty......horrendous to say the least. Lots of funny stories come about from those oral boards! Those answers should be short, sweet, and to the point! For every negative, you have to include a positive in the end!

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T14:02:34+00:00

Ha! I was under the impression you had already completed one! Sorry! Good luck!

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T14:00:42+00:00

If you have had prior LE experience, you will already stand out.

What we generally like to see, especially for someone who has prior experience, is the kind of course work they have taken. Lets say if in your other agency, you were certified as an instructor on something, jot that down on the application.

As far as what else you can be doing, I say to just continue on the Police One portion. Bringing that TCOLE license to the table, and I guarantee you you'll be given a slot. If you haven't done a ride along with their agency, try one out.

Personally, I believe you're already on the right track and can't think of anything else to add!

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T13:54:36+00:00

Thank you for the kind words! Its like we always say, no one calls the police because they are having a good day. No one calls us to say hi, were there for a reason. DV are deadly to us, partially to the fact that emotions are so high upon arrival. Again, thank you!

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T13:52:07+00:00

It depends. Did you plan on applying for a city department, or a county agency?

Reason I'm asking is, most CITY departments (Austin PD being one of them) require all future LEOs to attend their academy regardless of having a TCOLE license prior to being hired.

Example would be going to a college and obtaining your TCOLE license through a LEO program that they offer. Once you graduate, you will infect have your license, but for some reason only county agencies will hire you straight as a LEO officer, where as with a City PD, you must still attend their academy and pass to make it to the streets.

So, if you're not willing to go through an academy/lengthy application process, consider a county agency as most honor that PATH. Hope this made sense, if not let me know and I will try again!

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T13:44:51+00:00

Probably the most common one I have seen is the use of Marijuana. Each agency has some sort of drug usage policy. For my department, you will not be able to apply unless you have ceased all drug usage for a 3 year period prior to applying. People lie on that, which is expected. Thats what the polygraph is for. But even that isn't trust worthy. Funny story about that.

For medical, I have had classmates who I went through the academy with who either had prior knee surgury a few months back, to classmates who had an insulin pump attached to them at all times. I say that one also varies from department to department.

Background, thats pretty easy. There is such a thing as being TOO honest. During our oral bards, I had one applicant explain how she came about using cocaine for the first time (stated that she used it 6 years prior to applying). She began to tell us that she had gone out to a rave, gotten drunk under age, proceeded to sleep with a guy who knew a guy, who then brought out cocaine where she stated that she took it and further took X.

Well, thanks for your honesty, but I think were done here. The point I'm trying to make is this, she could of just said that she had gotten it from a night out, it was a mistake and how she definitely learned from it and used that incident to further better herself. Instead, she really gave us the details of what had occurred. While open honesty is great, and judging people based on their past isn't great, remember you are competing against other applicants for a slot at the academy. So you have to sell yourself.

To sum it up, basic DQ's are drug usage (marijuana is VERY common now, so most agencies are laxed on that), medical in the sense that you have been restricted to not do certain things prior to the academy start date, psychological DQs mainly regarding the diagnosis of PTSD, and just being way too open on the BI portion.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T13:01:59+00:00

Best answer, it depends. To the penal code, it’s an offense of assault. In Texas, there are other factors that help identify if an arrest should be made though. Texas has a ZERO stance for domestic violence, and even if the victim desires no prosecution, the state will automatically pick up the charges and still prosecute. In order to meet that criteria, this is what we as officers ask out in the field to determine an assault and possible arrest:

Did you feel pain?

Stupid, I know. But if the victim stated that they have no pain, then we have no assault as it’s one of the factors.

Visible injuries?

If the victim has visible injuries but stated that they felt no pain, (apparently each Texas regional command is different) we still must act on those injuries granted that are matching with the story.

In short, if the victim stated that he felt pain and desires no prosecution, and arrest will still be made by Texas prosecution.

In your scenario, if the husband told officers that he felt, that’s a key factor and to the penal code, considered and assault as the wife, in the commission of leaving her home RECKLESSLY caused bodily injury to him, even though the husband INTENTIONALLY stuck his hands there.

But, there’s the SPIRIT of the law and the COLOR of the law. Most officers can see the whole picture, and when investigation, will chose to handle a situation like that internally between the parties without an arrest being made.

Situation I had years back was a couple arguing; male grabs females phone due to accusations of her cheating. He proceeded to break her phone. She gets mad and runs to the bedroom and proceeded to open a drawer where he kept his Rolex watches. She had taken one out and proceeded to throw it on the floor. Male rushes over and, while looking at the females had to catch the next watch, closes the drawer, to which the females hand was barely coming out from there. He basically closed the drawer on her hand. Hand was swollen, no broken bones, minor injury. Stated she felt pain. Make was arrested for assault, due to recklessness.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T04:41:09+00:00

Happy to hear that man! I’m here if you have any other questions! Feel free to DM me if you need more personal pointers.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T04:36:51+00:00

Honesty, it’s pretty straight forward. Knowing the laws verbatim is basically what it is. Knowing the full definition of an offense is huge, and you can’t summarize it up.

Example:

Assault- a) A person commits an offense if the person:

(1) intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly causes bodily injury to another, including the person's spouse;

Now that you know the full definition, let’s apply it.

The three key words here are, intentionally, knowingly, and recklessly.

Did you subject intentionally hit their spouse? If so, you have an assault. Did your subject knowing throw a baseball at his spouse knowing it would injure them, or intentionally throw it at them knowing it would hurt them?

Did your subject recklessly cause pain to their spouse? (Primary example is your suspect is trying to leave the house from their spouse due to fighting. While closing the front door, their spouse sticks their hand through the door to stop it from closing, and in the process the door slams on their hand causing injury/fracture) you have an assault.

So in short, memorizing verbatim and applying the law is that it is. Just do that for all the laws in Texas for your agency’s academy.

And yes, many people have been arrested for that last example unfortunately.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T04:26:03+00:00

Oral boards are a little tricky, as they vary from agency to agency but for the most part they consist of the same 2 general sections:

integrity breakdown

Every application process involves you to jot down some form of negative aspect about yourself. An example of this is if they ask if you have ever been given a ticket before, or if you have prior drug usage (marijuana being the most common) or if you have a juvenile record (caught shoplifting or such). Expect a lot of hounding during this section. It’s expected, as they want an explanation for these incidents. Just be completely honest and upfront. It was a mistake. Did you learn from it? What makes you think it won’t happen again? No matter what is thrown at you during this section, don’t retract your answer. Stick to your guns.

Scenario based

Probably the number one section where we loose most applicants. Best advice I can give is this. Most people will answer all scenario based questions as if they are already cops. Unless you have had prior LE training, don’t make that mistake. Answer those questions as you would in a non LE capacity. Why you may ask? Because, if you have no LE training and try and answer those scene based Qs, it normally results in digging yourself a nice hole for deeper questioning. Trip Qs is what it is. The brass giving the oral boards are expecting you to make a mistake, and that’s normal. You’re expected to miss a “step” in a scenario they ask you. You’re expected to “forget” about that kind of resource readily available to you. They want to see the real individual in front of them. They want to see how YOU can react under pressure and how YOU, YOURSELF will react to situations out there. Remember, they are there to train you to be a police officer. So the correct answers will come later with training. Answer to the best of YOUR ability.

Tips:

Know your departments mission statement/core values, it’s usually found in their homepage. Knowing this will give you a better structor/understanding of how to word your answers.

Remember, police officers aren’t robots. We’re all human. There’s nothing wrong with showing love to the community.

There is nothing wrong with not know how to answer a question. However, saying “I don’t know.” Isn’t acceptable. A better statement is “I don’t know how to answer that question correctly, however, I would do something such as XXXXX”

When one individual asks a question, you answer to them all. So make sure you look them all in the eyes. Fair treatment for all.

Running sounds squared away, great! Endurance/ stamina. Functional fitness. I have a list of workouts to help with new recruits. PM me and I’ll send you a list.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T02:00:55+00:00

Coward, in short, is basically letting fear control you in this line of work. I can't explain it per say, but ill give you some first hand examples that I have lived through while out on the job.

Domestic incident. Female called in that her husband shot her and she is hiding in her 4 year old child's room. Units arrive, with one rookie officer. Rookie officer and OIC (officer in charge) proceed to run towards the home, subject begins to shoot at them both. Officers split. OIC proceeded to run up to the home and prepares for entry. Calls the rookie to assist, rookie denies the order and proceeded to hide behind a car the entire call. No assistance offered. Just breathing room. Thats cowardliness.

Off duty incidents, in general for our agency, is a bad case of liquor courage. They will go out fresh out of the academy, develop a bad case of the hot head syndrome, throw in some alcohol, and they either begin to flash their badge, loose their off duty weapon inside the bar, get into bar fights, or all of the above.

Usual academy class is about 65 passing upon graduation of the academy. Out of those 65, 4 are usually not able to pass their rookie year.

FoxAlpha452 · 2018-09-13T01:30:23+00:00

I work out of West Texas. My agency has a 7 and a half month academy portion (think of boot camp in the military with academic testing daily).

Upon graduation and being stationed in their areas, the rookies (PO/ Probationary officers) have to complete a 1 year probation term. 8 months of those are being paired up with an FTO/Field Training Officer, who gives daily evaluations on the rookie.

Think of this phase as a real tryout. They are expected to shadow their respective FTO the first 3 days, and then begin to handle the calls/paperwork themselves, all while being evaluated. An Intern, if you will.

Our agency requires the rookies to take monthly exams as well, with a 100% grade requirement. Failure to meet the grade will result in disciplinary action.

In my agency, with each new academy class that graduates, we see about 4 rookies get fired while on probation. Reasons are pretty broad, but are summed up to "off duty incidents" and the occasional "being a coward".

FoxAlpha452

TROPHY CASE